TD Jakes - In the Lake Alone
I’m going to go to the Gospel of Saint Matthew, chapter 14, verses 22 through 33. There is a life lesson even in the turmoil that I told you we were experiencing behind the scenes. I came out and shared it with you because often the people in the restaurant don’t know that the oven blew up. There’s a significant difference between being out front and being in the back, amen? I told our team, «We’re going to move forward; the best way to respond to a crisis is to keep going.» You may not have everything you want; it may not be all lined out, but if you keep moving forward, God will work everything out. If you keep moving forward, that’s a sermon all by itself, amen?
When I got into the building, it was hot, but we kept moving forward. My people have been up on the roof; they’ve been everywhere, but we kept moving forward. Are we going to hold a service? Yes, we’re going to move forward! If we have to bring fans in here, or if I have to use a Mahalia Jackson fan and fan like we did in my grandma’s church, we’re going to move forward. You have to be a fighter; you can’t just be a churchgoer. You’ve got to be a fighter! Come on, talk to me, somebody! This is good, this is good, this is good! I’m excited, I’m excited, I’m excited! I’m honored to the Lord and to all of our associate pastors that are here. Give God praise for our associate pastors, our elders, our deacons, our members, our saints, our friends, and our visitors. We’re just glad for everybody! I trust you feel welcome; I want you to feel welcome in this place. And don’t think of this as a sermon; think of it as a conversation.
In the Gospel of Saint Matthew, chapter 14, verses 22-33, you will find an almost embarrassingly familiar scripture, and yet there is something to extrapolate from this text that is fresh. The story is known, but the perspective is fresh, and it is fresh because it is the bread that God has caused to fall in front of our tents this morning, addressing where we are in our lives. The reason we come to church is not to flaunt a Gucci bag. I’m not dismissing you if you have one; I’m glad you do, it looks good! But we did not come to show off; what we came to do is to get the sustenance we need for the times we are in. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.
Now, our congregation should stand for the reading of the Word, and we won’t bother you any longer after that; you can sit the rest of the way. You can even duck walk out of here if you’re ready to leave, okay? But the Gospel of Saint Matthew, chapter 14, verses 22-33, brings us to a very unique moment: Immediately, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side while he dismissed the crowd. Watch that closely; I’m going to read it again: Immediately, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on the mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
Oh God! Shortly before dawn, Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. «It’s a ghost!» they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them, «Take courage; it’s me—it’s I! Don’t be afraid!» «Lord, if it’s you,» Peter replied, «tell me to come to you on the water.» «Come,» he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, cried out, «Lord, save me!» Immediately, immediately, immediately—suddenly, straightaway, without hesitation—Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. «You of little faith,» he said, «why did you doubt?» When they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, «Truly, you are the Son of God!» Can you say amen? I want to use as a subject, «In the Lake Alone.» In the lake alone. Let’s pray:
And then we’ll see the Spirit of the living God delicately and gently fall in this place today. Anoint these lips of clay that they might be endowed with the power necessary to articulate the Word of God. I thank You in advance for Your omnipresence, but even more specifically for Your manifested presence. Manifest what is already here—not just in the room but in the hearts of Your people. For many of us have found ourselves in a perplexing time and feel alone. Speak out of the volume of that book, O God, in Jesus' name, amen.
You may be seated. Yes, let’s talk. Let me begin by saying that for the last ten days or so, I’ve been living alone. My wife has been at the bedside of her brother, and I want to ask for special prayer for him. His name is Ray Williams, actually Aldo Ray Williams. If God does not intervene, he is likely to transition without our prayer and without God’s intervention, and we are at the point of just trusting God. She is at his bedside now; that has been difficult for her, for us, for our family, and for his siblings and all our loved ones. Most of you know what that’s like because you’ve been there. Some of you know what it’s like to spend day after day in a hospital room, watching someone slip away. It is traumatic all by itself.
So every time I text her, I tell her I can feel your heart beating in my chest, meaning I can feel her pain without talking to her because I have known her for 40 years. You melt into each other like ice on a hot day; it is impossible to separate the cubes when they start to melt. I told her, no matter how long it takes, I’ll be here when you get back. I have to confess to you that I’m used to being the one gone, and it is a striking difference when you’re the one left home alone. When you’re the one gone, you are preoccupied with whatever you want to do. You might think of the person and miss them, but when you’re the one left home alone, after a few days, the house seems hollow and meaningless and empty. There is a strange type of persecution that comes from aloneness.
Are you hearing what I’m saying to you? It’s not that we’re hanging all over each other like we did in the first five years. After 40 years, you don’t have to be together all the time. She might be on one side of the house, and I might be on the other. It is just the knowledge of knowing that you are not alone. All of a sudden, what she had been telling me about my traveling began to ring strongly in my ear. She said, «When you’re not here, I double lock all the doors and set the alarm system. I’m more apprehensive and don’t sleep as well because I am a woman alone.» It’s one thing for a man to be alone, but it is more threatening in some ways, especially in the contemporary society in which we live, where people have literally lost their minds.
To be alone, aloneness is a difficult thing to deal with for any gender or age. Aloneness is the punishment they extend toward inmates. Murderers, killers, and gang leaders crumble and weep like babies in solitary confinement. See, it’s a different thing to be alone and another thing to be trapped. If you are trapped and alone, that exponentially intensifies the agony of the moment. Yet, we realize that to some degree, even those of us who have not experienced isolation in prison or aloneness at home are going through a time right now of being alone, even in a crowd, even with a spouse, even with children, even with friends calling on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and all the methods whereby we can communicate—LinkedIn. It doesn’t matter how you connect; you’re still left alone with your thoughts, along with your ideas, frustrations, limitations, and aggravations—alone with yourself, dealing with whatever you’ve got to deal with. Because not all storms fall like rain; not all storms come with wind. Not all storms come with lightning or thunder. It is possible to have an emotional storm, an intellectual storm. Have you ever gotten into an argument with yourself?
I have gotten on my own nerves. I have told myself I am sick of you. Are you stupid? Have you lost your ever-loving mind? Why are you so crazy? And there’s nobody talking; my lips don’t even have to move. I can argue with myself. We come to a point in life when we begin to realize that no matter who is around us, we can no longer relegate to others the responsibility for our contentment. It is not her job to make me happy, and it is not my job to make her happy, because sometimes she doesn’t know what she wants. We can spend 15 minutes trying to decide where to go eat and another 20 minutes trying to decide what to order. Sometimes I don’t know what I want. I know I want something; I know something is missing, but I cannot find the intellectual ability to articulate the abstract feeling that I’m having, even to decide what is bothering me.
I realize that although I have a partner, I am yet alone. So single people think that if I only got married, then I wouldn’t have to be alone—only to get married, be in the marriage for 10 years, and find out that if you don’t perfect your aloneness, that marriage is not the antidote. Come on, somebody! If you can’t be happy in a room by yourself, don’t invite me into your unhappiness. People who cannot find peace within themselves often invite you into their drama, and their drama becomes your trauma. Sometimes, though you have the same address and live in the same house and pay the same property taxes, you are still alone in the house. To escape the drama in the room down the hall, you’ll get it tomorrow.
This particular text is an unscheduled encounter with God. It was not on the agenda; it was not on the itinerary. He did not tell them this was going to happen; this seemingly happens by happenstance. You see, this text is in between miracles. There is a miracle waiting for them at Genaceret, but they’ve got to get to it. My God! You do know that there’s a miracle waiting for you, but you’ve got to get to it. There’s also a miracle behind them—the fish and the loaves—but that is over. According to the text, Jesus has now sent them to get in the boat while He sends the fed people away. This will tie into Wednesday night very well. He has finished the miracle and told them to get in the boat and go to the other side while He sends the people away. He did not tell them to wait for Him; He told them to go to the other side.
We step into this text because this text happens because they obeyed Him and got into the boat, but they did not complete the mission and got stuck at this nebulous point between two miracles. I know that God has been good; I know that God will be good, but I’m trying to get to next, and that’s where all hell breaks loose. It’s not in the miracle that all hell breaks loose; it’s in between the miracles that all hell breaks loose. When I look back over my life, I have a long, extensive resume that God has provided of the many things He has done in my past, and when I look into my future and my legacy, I have some things that are almost within my reach that I haven’t quite touched yet. If it’s nothing but my children and grandchildren and the hopes I have for them, there are dreams and prayers that have gone up before God in an attempt to reach, to touch, and to help, and to minister to them.
But sometimes, I find myself in a hard-to-describe place between miracles. This makes difficult the conversations you have in relationships when people ask, «What are you thinking?» because it is hard to articulate what you are thinking when you are neither here nor there—when you are en route but haven’t reached your destination. When you are nautical miles away from where you’ve been and still nautical miles ahead of where you are going, and you are stuck between two places, it is hard to explain to people where your head is, where your mind is, and what is going on in your spirit when you are neither here nor there. It is into this extreme condition that we experience this unexpected encounter with God.
Now, in the King James Version, which I did not read, I read from the NIV because in the NIV it calls it a lake, but in the King James Version, it calls it a sea. Since I have always known this particular body of water as the Sea of Galilee, and being honest, having grown up in West Virginia, I had never seen a sea. My imagination conjured up this huge, massive area of such proportions that when I went to Israel for the first time and they took me down the winding roads in the mountains to the seashore to see the Sea of Galilee, I found out that the sea was actually a lake. Generally, if I were to preach this text, I would go into Peter’s ability to step off the boat, step into the water, and walk on the one word that Jesus said when He told him to come.
I’m not so sure he walked on water as much as I think he was walking on the word when Jesus said, «Come.» But before I deal with the fact that the word will hold you up in what others sink in, allow me the luxury to pontificate, to study, to analyze, to consider, to contemplate, and to understand the question that arises in my mind when I read this text. It’s not so much about how Peter walked on the water but the real question for me is, why are they still in the lake? If you have 12 men in a rowboat trying to get across a lake, let me contextualize it, especially for the people in Dallas: the Sea of Galilee is not quite as large as Joe Pool Lake. Okay? If you got on a boat on Joe Pool Lake and decided to cross over to the other side, I don’t think it would take all night to get there.
This is not a long journey; in fact, you can see the other side from the seashore. Some of the torment is when you’re close enough to see where you’re going, but you don’t have the ability to reach it. They are stuck in the middle of something they should be finished with, and I thought I would talk to you about being in the lake alone. Jesus did not tell them to wait for Him; He told them to go to the other side, so for them to not be there yet brings up the anxiety and frustration that emerges in the heart of an individual who has seen where they’re trying to go but can’t get there. It is the kind of conversation you have with yourself when you say, «I thought I would be there by now.»
Is there anybody else in the room who thought you would be? In my plan, in my head, with the inspection I made with my eye, I thought by the time I was 30 I would be there. I thought that by the time I got to 40, I would be there. I thought that by the time I was 50, I would be there. So not only am I dealing with the storm, I’m dealing with the disappointment of the fact that I had estimated incorrectly because I underestimated what can happen between here and there. I didn’t see the contrary winds that would be against me when you start talking about things you never thought you would see coming. You have to realize that we are living in a moment that we thought we would never see coming. I don’t know about you; maybe you did, but I never thought that we would see over a million people in body bags so numerous that our morgues couldn’t handle them, and our funeral homes would stack them up in trailers and lay bodies in hotel rooms in America.
Maybe you saw this in war in Beirut, but not in America. I never thought we would see bodies stacked up faster than we could bury them. I never thought I would see a time in the history of my life, after 100 years without any type of plague or rampant disease of the magnitude we saw when COVID hit. It had been 100 years since we had seen it, and yet in the last three years, we have seen so many variations of it that by the time you get over one, you have another, and by the time you get over another, you have yet another. I never thought I would see the day I had to protect myself, even from people I love. I never thought I would witness people scaling the walls in our nation’s capital, protesting, about to perform a coup on the Vice President in America, and when I watched it on TV, I thought it was a movie, but it was the news.
Suddenly, I was rattled because I didn’t expect this kind of contrary wind—the kind of contrary winds that shut down big box stores like Toys «R» Us and closed down all types of industries. The kind of contrary winds that you can pay for overnight mail and might get it two weeks later. I never thought the time would come when we wouldn’t have enough trucks to make deliveries, creating such uncertainty. I never thought I could book a flight for a plane and not be able to board because there weren’t enough pilots to fly me to the other side. I never thought we would fight over everything imaginable amongst ourselves in our own country and literally hate each other over a piece of paper over your mouth. I never thought I would see the kind of times when big businesses would go bankrupt and the stock market would fall, not just nationally but globally.
I never thought the time would come that France and Europe would catch fire and California would catch fire too, and the middle of the country would catch fire. I never thought we would see tornadoes in Dallas, hurricanes in Dallas, ice storms in Dallas, and people freezing to death in Dallas. I never thought I would witness that in my lifetime. I never thought we would settle to see our children murdered in school and it become a normalcy or a political debate to save babies in a classroom. I never thought we would disagree about that. I never expected to see it, and these people never expected to still be alone in the lake. There are people in this room who never expected to lose their mother, and yet they lost her suddenly, slowly, fragmentally, emotionally, or mentally. And the pain and anguish were there because I know it makes sense that she should go first, but the fact that she did—somehow I thought she was invincible.
Somehow I thought she would last forever; somehow I thought she would always be there. So, I didn’t go over every Saturday, and I didn’t stop by, and I wish I would have called more often, and I wish I would have spent more time. But before I knew it, time was up; time’s up; she’s gone. There are people in this room who understand—they never thought the day would come that their heart would be broken by somebody they had laid in bed with, told all their secrets to, and yet they find themselves in a situation where their secrets have gone to somebody else’s bed, and they are left alone, lying in bed, wondering if they’re talking about me. I never thought! Is there anybody in this room going through something in your life you thought you’d never see? I thought I’d never be backed up on my mortgage. I thought my car would never be repossessed. I thought I would never lose my home.
I thought if I had a degree, surely I would have a great job. I thought if I had a great skill, surely I would have a great job. I thought if I was a good man, surely somebody would want a good man. I thought if I was a good woman, surely someone would want a good woman. I never expected to see the kind of storm I’m in today. I’m praying about things I took for granted yesterday, and I found myself alone in the lake. I never thought my daughter would turn against me. I never thought my son would grow up and hate me. I never thought my grandchild would cause me financial strain. I never thought! Is there anybody in here who is humble enough and willing to admit that you’re dealing with something that you never thought would happen?
If I had thought it would happen, I would have been better prepared. If I thought you would leave me, I wouldn’t have told you my business. If I thought you wouldn’t stay with me, I wouldn’t have been as transparent as I was. If I thought you would betray me, I wouldn’t have confided in you as a friend. If I thought you would go back and tell your girlfriend, I wouldn’t have told you my business. If I thought, if I thought, if I thought—if I thought I would have saved more, I would have put more back. If I thought I could lose my car, if I thought I was going to get laid off, if I thought they were going to downsize, if I thought they were going out of business. How do you prepare for an attack in a part of your life that you never saw coming?
The Bible says that they should have been there, but because of the contrary winds—the contrary winds! Has anyone faced contrary winds? Almost everything I’ve ever gone to do, I always had to do it in contrary winds. If you fly to L.A. and expect it to be a three-hour flight, and the pilot comes on the speaker and says, «We will be there in two hours because of the winds behind us,» you’d say, «Well, it’s two hours now from Dallas to L.A.» But when you fly back from L.A., they say it’s going to be three and a half hours because we are flying against the wind. Is there anybody here, anywhere in the balcony, somewhere in the back, who has had to fly through contrary winds?
It feels as though everything that comes easily to other people comes hard for you because every time you try to get there, there’s always something pushing against you that slows down your progress. I should have been further along, I should have been married, I should have been more successful, and I should have been more accomplished. Don’t judge me. You didn’t have to contend with the kind of winds I had to face to get where I am. How dare you look down your nose at me and act like I don’t have any fight, any fuel, or any tenacity? You didn’t have to deal with the kind of winds. Is there anyone here besides me who is outraged at people who judge your life and brag about their accomplishments without considering the winds that were against you in the middle of the fight? And maybe, just maybe, you should forgive yourself for not being further along, considering the contrary winds that were against you in the first place.
The odds were stacked against you, the trials were against you. Every day, I’m just hustling, hustling, hustling. Every day, I’m just hustling. I’m hustling every day: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and I am still alone in the lake. I’m sweating in the lake; my arms are tired in the lake. I’m 30 years old and exhausted. No, I’m 40 years old, and I’m starting to feel old because I’ve been hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling. I know my house doesn’t look like it, my life doesn’t look like it, my love life doesn’t look like it, my bank account doesn’t look like it, and my investments don’t look like it. I know my credit doesn’t look like it, and I know my circumstances don’t look promising, but the contrary winds have changed the time of arrival. The pilot was late, there was a problem with the plane, the crew arrived late, and they left my bags at the terminal.
All this mess happens in this environment. I should have been further; the marriage, for all the work I put into it, should have been further. For the way I love that child, you mean to tell me you’re going to stand up and talk to me like that when I worked two jobs, went to your PTA meetings, attended your recitals, and sent you places I couldn’t afford to go myself? I made sure you had exposure to everything I wasn’t exposed to, like ballet, opera, and everything else I wanted to do, so you would benefit from opportunities that I only dreamed of. And this is the response I get from you? If you don’t get out of my way! I don’t have time for church folks today. I want to talk to real people who understand the frustration of being alone in the lake.
Now I’m getting older, now I’m getting tireder, and you don’t even come to see me. You’re 40, and you want to be alone. I thought if I got you to 21, you would give back to me. But at 40, you’re still blaming me for your struggles. Have you noticed you are a grown man? Do you know you’re a grown woman? All of these are contrary winds against me because I didn’t just have to make your payment; I had to make mine. I had to make mine and yours, and hers and his, and help them with this and that and the other. And no, I’m not ready to retire because I invested in you, and now I am alone in the lake. If I’m preaching the right message, give me 30 seconds of crazy praise.
The other day, I was on a Zoom call; in fact, I’ve been on Zoom every day. There were four people on the call, and one of them was talking, but we couldn’t hear them; their face was frozen, and they didn’t know it. They were putting in the effort to communicate, but the impact wasn’t coming through because the screen was frozen. The conversation continued without them—frozen, stuck, and they didn’t even know it. See, this text, my brothers and sisters, is about faith and fear, about being frozen sometimes—frozen, and you don’t even know it. Sometimes you’re frozen, and you don’t even realize it because you are expending effort but unable to measure the impact. Somebody has to tell you, «You froze.»
The truth of the matter is the 12 disciples are frozen in a boat with Jesus. They are frozen, and he is waving the 5,000 away. I feel like preaching. They are frozen, and Jesus has gone apart into the mountains—the same mountains I came down to the Sea of Galilee. He had climbed up into the mountains to pray. When I came to the Sea of Galilee, on the side of the mountain was a shepherd tending his flock. In the same sense, Jesus, the chief shepherd, had gone up onto the mountain to pray, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are not in Genesaret because they are frozen. Wait a minute—let’s talk about how awesome Jesus is. Jesus says, «You take the boat; I’ll walk over.»
Considering the size of the lake and the command to go on to Genesaret, Jesus didn’t start walking to meet them in the water but to join them in Genesaret. Jesus is incredible! He transcends the laws of gravitational pull; he is the lawmaker who walks on what others drown in! That’s what I love about Jesus. I am so glad, Pastor, that I don’t serve a god I have to carry. I am so glad I don’t serve a god who depends on my hustling. I don’t have to carry Jesus! So, when Jesus finishes praying, he starts walking across the lake, no doubt headed for Genesaret, but finds they are frozen. Are you stuck? I know you’re alive, but are you stuck? I know you’re still talking, but are you stuck? It’s possible to convey information that isn’t being received because you are frozen. You measure yourself by effort, but God judges by impact.
So, you wonder how in the world you can row this hard and still be stuck. Is there something wrong with my oars that they’re not responding to my effort? It’s taken me all night to do something I should have completed in a few hours. Have you ever considered that you might be stuck? See, can I go further? The reason you are comfortable in this building right now is because you know that when you’re ready to leave, the doors are open. You can go. But the moment somebody alters things and tells you that you are stuck, you suddenly become disturbed by the knowledge that you are caught in something. I’m going to go deeper—I’m going to go deeper because I just struck a nerve. It is so much easier to get in than to get out.
Have you ever gotten into something that you couldn’t figure out how to escape? If you do this, it’s going to cause that, and if you do that, it’s going to affect the other. If you do this, it’s going to create this and that’s going to be worse. And there you are, just stuck, even though you’re not getting anywhere. Even though you don’t want it. Even though you don’t want the relationship, even though you don’t want the friendship, even though you don’t want the job, you keep rolling every day in the same place because you are frozen. Friend, you are stuck.
Now the wind is blowing, the lightning is flashing, the thunder is rumbling, and the sea is tumultuous—and they are stuck. Surely the waves should have pushed me, but they were pushing against me. If I wanted to go back, the waves would have taken me back. All I have to do to go backwards is let go. Oh, do you hear the words that are coming out of my mouth? You don’t have to take a class to go backwards. You don’t have to take a class on how to fall. You don’t have to take a class on how to fail. All you have to do to go backwards is let go. In fact, success is still being in the middle of the lake because if the waves had their way, you would be back where you came from in the first place.
I want to talk to people who are not only successful survivors. People who survived—you didn’t get to where you were trying to go, but you refused to go back to where you came from. I wonder if there’s anybody in here who wishes you were further along but is glad you’re not where you came from. You might not have a lot to show for it, but at least you made progress. Give him 30 seconds of crazy, holy ghost praise! I’m stuck, but I’m still here. I’m stuck, but I’m still here. I’m stuck, but I’m still here. And sometimes, success is just being still here. I’m not where I want to be, but I’m not where I used to be. I haven’t gotten there, but at least I’m not over here. To God be the glory for being alone in the lake because at least I made progress. You should have seen where I started from. You should have seen what I was up against; you should have seen how much was against me. You should have seen how I almost lost my mind.
The very fact that I’m on the boat is a testimony to God! Somebody in this place—you’re tired, but you’re hustling; you’re weary, but you’re pursuing; you’re disappointed, but you’re still fighting. Give yourself a hand clap! Come on, praise yourself! Would it hurt you to turn my mic up? Lift him up for yourself! Give God some praise for yourself! I know you’re not in Geneserat, but at least you’re not back where you came from. I want you to celebrate right where you are. I’m going to praise him for survival. I’m going to praise him because I’m still here. I’m going to praise him because I still have my right mind. I felt like dying, I almost went crazy, but I still have my right mind. I’m praising him for that! I don’t have a Gucci watch. I don’t have stiletto shoes. I don’t have a fine home, but I still didn’t lose my mind, and I still have my strength and my legs! Somebody give God a grateful praise!
I know I won’t get a response from everyone here. Jesus didn’t get everyone; only one leper came back to say thank you. So if I can get ten from the crowd to come back and say thank you in the middle of the lake, let the one who came back give him praise. The one who was healed, the one who is blessed—identify yourself, come out of hiding, and give God some praise! What I saw when I read the text is that this is an unexpected encounter. Wait a minute, before you sit down, fist bump seven people and tell them, «Jesus is coming! Jesus is coming! Jesus is coming! Jesus is coming!» When you’re stuck, Jesus is coming. Where you’re isolated, Jesus is coming. Where you’ve been frustrated, Jesus is coming. Where you’ve been alone, Jesus is coming. Where you’ve been tired, Jesus is coming. At the point of muscle fatigue, Jesus is coming. You’ve got mental fatigue, but Jesus is coming. You’ve got financial fatigue, but Jesus is coming! Is anybody glad to see Jesus?
Make some noise! Oh devil, you thought you had me, but Jesus is coming! Oh suicide, you thought you had me, but Jesus is coming! Oh frustration, you thought you had me, but Jesus is coming! I can see him! Here comes Jesus! Tell your trouble, «Here comes Jesus!» Tell your pain, «Here comes Jesus!» Tell your defeat, «Here comes Jesus!» Tell your frustration, «Here comes Jesus!» Praise him like you know who he is! Sit down; let’s go further. Rachel, in all the years I’ve been studying this text, I never saw that this was an unexpected encounter. Jesus never told them he was going to walk on the water. They never expected to be stuck at a stage in life they expected to be more successful. Now, let’s define success because some people might think, «He’s not talking to me; my finances are good, my education is fine. I went to Yale, I graduated from Harvard; I’m doing quite nicely. I’m glad to hear you encourage the little people who are struggling, but shut up.»
Success is not a degree; it’s not a document; it’s not a certain amount of money. There is somewhere in your life that you are not successful, whether it’s money or not. What we do is hide our own shortcomings behind our successes. We praise what we’re good at but go home and cry about what’s not working. You can be a successful attorney and feel like a failure as a father. You can be a successful judge and feel like a failure as a wife. You can have public success and private failure. You can have success in your business and be sick in your body. You can be successful in your practice and have a nervous condition no one knows about. Everybody in here has some area in your life that needs a visitation from Jesus, so stop being arrogant and come down, Zacchaeus, out of your tree and admit that you come up short somewhere and you need Jesus.
If you didn’t need Jesus, you wouldn’t be here. If you didn’t need Jesus, you wouldn’t raise your hand. If you didn’t need Jesus, you wouldn’t pray. If you didn’t need Jesus, you wouldn’t clap. There they are, in the middle of the lake, and they are alone in the lake. I got into something I can’t get out of, no matter how much I try to roll and push and shove. I’m in the lake. Cologne, what are you thinking about? Nothing. I can’t tell her that I’m trying to figure out how to get out of what I’m stuck in. I can’t tell the church. I can’t tell the pastor. I can’t tell the bishop. I can’t tell anybody that I’m stuck. I’m frozen on the screen, and I can’t figure out how to get unstuck. I check the plugs; I checked the wiring. I hit escape. I hit re-enter. I logged off. I logged back on. I can’t get enough signal. I want to talk to somebody who’s stuck. It is so much easier to get into something than it is to get out of it.
I leased the car. I got in easy, but when I got ready to take it back, I was furious because the fine print was designed for me to be stuck in the lake, and the guy grinning at me made me angry because I knew he set me up to be stuck; so, I’ve had faith, and I’ve had fear, and now I’m frozen in a contract that I’m going to have to buy my way out of. You don’t have to be upside down and alone to understand the illustration I’m talking about. Is there anybody in here who’s ever been upside down and alone? Yeah, it was good when you went in, wasn’t it? Here comes Jesus. I speak to you today in the name of the Lord that you will have an unexpected encounter with God that is going to break the chain over the thing that has left you alone in the lake.
The thing that wakes you up at night and has given you insomnia— and you can’t get rest no matter what you take or what you drink or what you do—because you are frozen in the lake. You are going to have an unexpected—do you receive it? —an unexpected encounter with Jesus because He’s going to reach you right where you are. Thank You, Lord, for being a God who can come to me when I can’t get to You, when I can’t reach where You called me to go, and I can’t do what You told me to do. Thank You for coming to me when I can’t get to You.
Now, here’s the challenge: can I go deeper? Here’s the challenge: you must recognize Him when He comes because He doesn’t look in trouble like He looked on land. The Bible said that when Jesus came to them walking on the lake, they misunderstood the answer because the answer looked like a ghost. The problem in this text is that religious people don’t recognize God’s answer when He doesn’t look like what you’ve been taught He should look like. Sometimes God will answer in a form that challenges your theology. God will use somebody that you didn’t think God would use. God will speak to somebody that you didn’t think God would speak to, and you’ll be afraid to receive it.
Here comes Jesus, and His own children are scared to let Him in the boat because they think He looks like a ghost. So God told me to tell you, you better recognize; you better recognize when I come to get you. I might look different, but you better recognize because your next encounter will not look spiritual, will not look Christian, will not look like what you had in mind, but I am coming to get you out of it. Whoever’s been stuck, I want you to praise Him like you just got out of jail. I’m coming to get you out! I’m coming to get you out! I’m coming to get you out! I’m coming to get you out! I’m coming! I’m coming! I’m coming! I’m coming! I’m coming to get you out! And Peter decided to try the Spirit, and he said, «Hey, Lord, if that’s You, give me permission to come.»
You have permission right now to step out of the boat of your failure and step out of the boat of your fear and step out of the boat of your incapacitation. It’s going to be scary. It’s going to be frightening. It’s going to be transitional. It’s going to blow your mind. Your friends are going to tell you you’ve lost your mind, but get ready to step off the boat. You’ve been rocking in that boat for years; it’s time to step out! Somebody take a step! This is your season to take a step into the supernatural. This is your season to step out into what you’ve been afraid of. This is your season to defy the laws of gravity. This is your season to step out of the familiar. Peter is a boatman; he knows how to handle a boat, but he’s never walked on water. This is a season to do what you’ve never done before! Who am I preaching to?
Excuse me, Nike, but fist bump somebody and say, «Just do it!» Just do it! Stop talking about it! Stop singing about it! Stop dancing about it! Stop praying about it! And just do it! If God gives you a word, a word from God is all you need! Sister Dyer, this is a time of disruptive thinking. This is a time of innovative ideologies. Traditional methods will not work. What got you here will not take you there. You’ve got to step out of the boat to have an encounter with God on a territory you’ve never been in before—something that is disruptive and unexpected. You’re going to walk where fish swim. The fish are going to be shocked to see your toes because you’re getting ready to step into an area that you’ve never stepped into before.
Oh God! And that’s why you had to be here this morning, because I have a prophetic word for you. You’re getting ready to step into another dimension. You’re getting ready to step into another zone. What worked on the boat won’t work on the sea. You can’t stand up in the boat, but you can stand up in the water, and God’s going to give you the power to do what you couldn’t do before. Every time you tried to stand in the boat, you rocked the boat. That’s why they don’t like you; you’re a boat rocker. Your feet weren’t made for boats; they were made for water. Step out into the deep! I feel the spirit of innovation! I feel the spirit of disruption! I feel the spirit of creativity! I feel God calling you where you’ve never gone before! That’s why He drew you here this morning. This word is confirmation! This word is confirmation! This word is confirmation!
Kiss the boat goodbye; you’re getting ready to step out! You’re going to look like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz! You won’t show up in another dimension—in another place where you’ve never been before. You’re going to be running around with munchkins; you’re going to be running around with people who don’t even get it. You’ve got to break your societal construct. You have to come out of your circle. You’ve been hanging around the same 12 people long enough; you’re going to have to break into another dimension. Look at somebody and say, «I’m coming in!» You don’t have to like me; you don’t have to hug me, but I’m coming in! I spent too long rocking in the same place; I got to step into another dimension! I’m tired of your jokes; I’m proud of your humor; I’m proud of your ideas; I’m proud of your limitations.
Scared or not, here I come! I’m going to go out even if my hands are trembling. I’m going to step out even if my knees are knocking. I’m going to step out even if I have to leave my friends behind me. He called me to do this; He anointed me to do this; He gave me permission to do this! I will not die like I started. Somebody help me praise Him in here just a little while! The devil didn’t want you to get this word; he tried to shut us down, but the devil is a liar! I may not be on the stream, but I’m anointed in this room! In the name of Jesus, the power of the Holy Ghost is in this place! This is a rhema word for this house! Watch this: 11 people stayed on the boat; one of them stepped out! Peter—oh loudmouth Peter—was used to being one out of 12. You’re going to be one out of twelve; you’re going to be the only one in your family; you’re going to be the only one in your sorrow; you’re going to be the only one in your fraternity.
You can’t get their permission to do it; you just have to respond to the word of God and take a step. Peter was used to being one out of 12. He was one out of 12 disciples. He was the only one to cut the ear off the Roman soldier. He was one out of 12, glory to God! Yes, he was! When Jesus asked, «Who do you say that I am?» Peter was one out of 12 who said, «Thou art the Christ, the Son of the true and living God.» When the Lord needed somebody to preach on the day of Pentecost, Peter was one out of 12 who preached the inaugural message of the dispensation of the Holy Ghost, and when it came to stepping off the boat, he was practicing for his next big adventure. Step, step, step, step. If you can’t give up your friends, you can’t go with Jesus! If you can’t give up your crowd, you can’t go with Jesus! God says stop idolizing your 12 friends and step off the boat! Who am I preaching to?
My next «F» is focus. In order to be disruptive and innovative, you have to focus. Your greatest enemy—hear me, I know this from experience—your greatest enemy is distraction. The closer you get to the next dimension, the harder it is to focus. Things will happen to the left of you and the right of you, the east and west of you, to draw your attention away from your focus. Peter walked as well as he focused. If you lose your focus, you will sink in what God called you to walk in. So don’t respond to the naysayers! Don’t respond to the criticism! Don’t respond to the crisis! Don’t respond to the chaos! Keep your focus! Focus! Focus is what lets me preach without notes. They can shut down my equipment, but they can’t shut down my focus! I made the notes; the notes didn’t make me! And if the devil thinks for a minute that my mind isn’t bigger than my paper, he’s got another thing coming! My paper was blank; it was my mind that wrote it! And as long as I’ve got this head, I can preach this gospel!
Somebody shout «Focus!» The text comes to teach us to focus. Don’t let anybody break your focus! All those people calling you, bringing you bad news, are trying to make you fall. If you respond to the problem, you have lost your focus. The problem is not strong enough to stop you from the prophecy until you focus on it. I call it false victory to win the battle and lose the war—it is not a victory! Why do I care what you think? What does that have to do with where I’m going? How many of my bills do you pay? How much breath did you put in my lungs? How did you make the blood run through my veins? Your opinion is overrated; your opinion is none of my business! Think whatever you want to think; I’m going to keep moving! Now listen closely because the last two or three things I’m going to say are real important: your focus is under attack! Your focus is under attack! You have to focus on your outcomes, not your issues! Your outcomes!
Keep your «how» in the past! Focus! Focus! Focus! This is the word of the Lord to the people of God, and for some reason, God wanted the people in this room, the people who extended the effort to get in the car, drive, and come out into the weather to be here; this word is for you! Somebody shout «Focus!» Now think in your mind of all the things that are trying to distract you! Delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete! Block, block, block, block! Delete! Block! Delete! Block, block, delete! Block! Delete! Block, block! I gotta focus!
Next point I want to tell you is that as long as Peter focused, he broke all the rules with focus! The people who are the most successful in life— in business, in church, in preaching, in ministry, in soul-winning— I don’t care what it is, in archaeology or architectural designs—are people who focus! The people who write the best books are the people who focus! The people who are the best students are the people who focus! And your problem is you are so busy being in with the 12 and keeping up with the rumors and keeping up with the gossip! The Lord told me gossipers are not your audience! I did not call you to preach to the naysayers and the catfish down in the mud! I call you to preach the gospel! Focus!
As long as Peter focused, he walked on the water. He only began to sink when he lost his focus, and the falling of Peter is the freezing of his mind because I want to ask you a question: what is Peter doing sinking in the water? No, it’s not just that God told him to come; there’s a bigger point. Peter could swim! Peter jumped off the boat and swam to Jesus under pressure. You forget what you got! The only reason Peter is sinking is that he forgot he could swim, never mind that God could save him.
Peter could swim, and under pressure, you will forget who you are. You will forget what you have. You will forget what you know, and you will sink in something that you could swim in. He could swim to Jesus. You say, «Well, maybe the winds and the waves were so contrary he couldn’t swim.» No, the Bible didn’t say he tried to swim; the Bible said he began to sink. Swimmers don’t begin to sink; they begin to swim. The Lord told me to tell you that if you can’t walk on it, swim through it. Holly, if you can roll, you can swim. Don’t forget what God gave you in the middle of the lake; you can swim. No wonder Jesus said, «Oh, ye of little faith, you didn’t even use up all you had!»
I will never forget I was a young man, and I was with my father. We were carrying boxes up a flight of stairs, and he said the most simple thing to me, but I never forgot it. It stayed with me all my life. I was—let me see—I was on the back end of the box, and he was on the front end. He was going up the steps backward, and I was going up forward so I could see. He said something simple to me that was metaphorical, powerful, and stayed with me all my life. He said, «Don’t forget to breathe.» I said, «Breathe?» He said, «Yeah, when you’ve got a lot of weight on you.» Are y’all getting this? Is this as good to you as it is to me? This is a filet mignon. When you’ve got a lot of weight on you, your first impulse is to stop breathing and just carry the weight. But if you breathe, you renew your muscles. You oxygenate your blood system; your circulatory system acts at maximum capacity, and you can carry on. That’s why weightlifters push out and in: because oxygen is related to strength.
Daddy told me, «When you’re under pressure, I need you to keep breathing.» And somebody’s frozen and falling because you stopped breathing. You know what breathing is? Breathing is not just taking care of what you’re focused on; it’s also taking care of you to get there. You can become so focused on where you’re trying to go that you forget to take care of you while you’re getting there. And so if you’re not careful, you will get there and lose yourself. What good is getting there if you lose yourself? When my wife left, I still had a nice house, but I didn’t have a home. The difference between a house and a home is somebody to share it with. Without her in the house, it’s like being an artist in a room full of blind people or being a musician to the deaf. What will it profit you to get there if you lose them? It’s them you’re doing it for. So you can’t stop breathing! You can’t freeze and forget what you can do.
You’re good at knowing what God can do, but I asked myself, «Peter, why are you sinking and not swimming?» Even in contrary winds, if you can swim, you can swim. Did you forget? This is the Holy Spirit’s question to you: Did you get so stressed that you forgot you could swim? He cried out, «Lord, save me!» And the Lord, the Bible says, immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand. We miss that because we act like Jesus was right there, but He stretched. He stretched. God could stretch! I could preach it! I could preach. Let me just play with this for just a minute. Just a minute. See, Isaiah said, «Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?» Jesus is God’s arm. Jesus is God stretching to a dying humanity. When God got ready to stretch His arm, He said, «Jesus, born of a virgin.» He is the incarnation of the stretched-out arm of the Father reaching to a dying humanity.
What happened on the lake is a picture of what happens in the world. It is God stretching forth His arm—the arm stretched out to save him. That is what Jesus is: the arm of the Lord. His right hand and His holy arm have gotten Him the victory. He stretched forth His arm and came where Peter was. Watch this as we close. He took him by the hand and walked him back to the boat. When they got back in the boat, watch this, the wind ceased. The wind ceased not when they got to Gennesaret; the wind ceased when they got back to the boat, which says this was all a controlled test.
So, the final thing the Lord told me to tell you is: what looks like it’s out of control is being controlled. He puts you in this situation in a controlled environment to show you how you respond to contrary winds. How you respond to the wind is how you turn success into being alone. Everyone standing. Everyone standing. I’ve said several things to you only if you can hear them. I’ve said some things to you that are cut to the continuity of where you are in life right now, where our country is, where our world is, and where we are eschatologically. Our eschatological understanding of the times says that we are nearing, if not into, end times. I never thought in all my life when I started preaching at 19 that I would get to see the book of Revelation line up with my reality.
I never thought that when the Bible talks about the earth would burn with fervent heat that that sounded ridiculous, and now I see fires breaking out all over the world that we’re unable to control, and the climate is getting hotter and hotter. We seem determined to keep making money even if we burn up. How in the world did a prophet 2,000 years ago prophesy the heat that the earth is burning? I went to Alaska, and when I went to Alaska, the glaciers were amazing. I came back two years later, and they were gone. They were gone! These huge glaciers with these polar bears were gone. The planet is melting. This isn’t the time for you to go internal. This is no time for you to indulge and be selfish. This is a time for you to wake up. We are having an encounter with God of massive proportions.
When they texted me before I got here and told me the heat had gone out, the air had gone out, and the system didn’t shut down, I said, «No, you won’t,» because leadership speaks in a storm. There is a difference in my voice and other voices in this house. If there’s something going on, I will speak to you; if it’s worth talking about, I will speak directly to you and tell you what to expect.
I said, «Pull out every jug of water we’ve got, fill it with ice, put it in the lobby, put it where they can get it. I’ll bring out some Gatorade so I don’t lose my electrolytes while I’m preaching. We will go on and have church, because the more the wind blows against me, the more I know I’ve got a word from God.» I’ve talked to you about faith, fear, falling, and focus. The Bible said when they got back to the boat, they all rejoiced, even those who didn’t get off the boat. They said, «Surely this is the Son of God,» and they entered into a praise without an experience. I told you, the only way what you went through is a failure is if you didn’t learn anything from it.
You remember when I told you that last Sunday? Hear me good: you can talk about Peter all you want, but in all of history, Peter is the only disciple who knew what it was like to walk on the water with Jesus. The Apostle Paul wrote most of the New Testament epistles, and he never walked on the water with Jesus. Peter, oh unlearned Peter, was the only one who knew how to survive in the storm. And I don’t care what you know if you don’t know how to survive in the storm; it means absolutely nothing at all.
The Lord told me to focus on your focus as I come to the end of this message. He told me to focus on your focus. I want you to focus on your focus. I want to suggest to you that 80% of the things you’re worried about do not deserve your attention. If you journal and you go back to your three-year-old journal, what was a big problem back then is nothing now. If you’re worried about anything that’s not going to affect the next decade of your life, throw it out. Focus isn’t hard; it’s a matter of knowing what to let go of.
You’re trying to fix people, change people, and make people do what you think they ought to do. You’re trying to be God in people’s lives. No wonder you’re exhausted! Everybody’s God—stop! You didn’t break them, and you can’t fix them. It’s hard for me to learn that too; I’m a fixer. I love to fix stuff. But some folks you don’t want to fix—their brokenness is their choice. You love them, but you can’t fix them. I’m talking about people down the street; I’m talking about people you love in your own house that you can’t fix, that keep you up at night and make you want to throw up because you’re so scared for them.
They’ll figure it out! You figured it out! You were a fool too, and you figured it out! And if your crazy self figured it out, give God an opportunity to work with them without you getting in the way. Focus! This is why God wants you to focus! I don’t know what’s happening to me these days; He’s talking to me in a different kind of way now than He used to talk. This is what God wants you to focus on: because there’s a miracle waiting on you, and you have got to get through this to get to that.
I am not preaching just to preach; preaching is not the only thing that I do or can do. I am called to this. I do not want to expend effort and not see impact. You are the measurement of the validity of my ministry. Paul said, «Ye are my credentials.» You are living epistles. Your life change, your perspective change, your catching a hold of the vision is proof of my authenticity; if not, I’m frozen and I don’t know it.
How many of you are identifying changes you need to make right now? I am going to pray because when you are the closest to Gennesaret, the storm will get worse. After a while, you will learn by the intensity of the attack the authenticity of the call. Why would hell attack what it already had? That’s stupid! Russia won’t fight Russia. If you are worthy to be attacked, you are worthy to be effective. Count it all joy, the Bible says, when you fall into diverse temptations, because that means Satan has noticed you. He has noticed you!
Every person who has an ear to hear, lift your hands up as I pray. Father God, into Thy hands I commend this people. I rebuke all the feelings of being in the lake alone—the loneliness, the emotional components, the frustrations—all of those emotional upheavals are distractions. We acknowledge them, we admit them, we release them; we let them go. We don’t have time to be stuck in a perpetual pity party. We might not stop the storm, but we can walk on top of it.
I pray today in the name of Jesus that lives are changed, hearts are mended, homes are restored, and ministries renewed. And for God’s sake, give us our focus! This is not about the winds; this is not about the waves; it’s not about the lightning; this is not about the people murmuring back on the boat; this is not even about Jesus looking like a ghost. This is about you having given us permission. You know why I know I have permission? I can breathe! I’m alive! I’m still here! I’m not in a bag or a box. You gave me another day, which is permission to do exploits. I will do them—not only I, but they will do them too!
I let God—let faith rise in the heart of every person in this room! It has been a long, long time since you have put me in a position to preach to this room alone. I will not fight against what You ordered. I am not addicted to the numbers on the screen or the people around the world; I am addicted to obeying whatever You decide. And if You decide that this is a rhema word for the people You called to be in this house, I receive it as such, I accept it as such, and I dismiss every distraction that would make me worry about anything else!
It has been many years since I have spoken to this room alone, and if You called us aside and gave us this word, there must be water walkers in this room—there must be water walkers in this room—there must be water walkers in this room—there must be water walkers in this room—there must be water walkers in this room! Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!